


The Picture On the Wall

by Vanillinzucker



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: 80s AU, Alternate Universe - 80s, F/F, First Love, Germany AU, M/M, Masturbation, Summer Vacation, grumpy jean
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 17:58:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vanillinzucker/pseuds/Vanillinzucker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in the time of two Germanys, a wall and a very hot summer in the 80s, Jean Kirschstein is forced to go on a vacation to Hungary with his parents.<br/>We have, on the one side (the West, apparently) a grumpy Jean with a penchant for Rock music and on the other side Marco Bott, having a vacation with his friends. </p>
<p>And of course, they are destined to meet, even though they grew up in different nations and different political systems.</p>
<p>This is about falling in love the first time, learning what's important that some things have to be accepted in order to change them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. There's a joke here somewhere and it's on me

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I'm Anne, I'm German, a bit weird and this is my first SNK fanfic.  
> I hope you enjoy reading and... that's it, actually, just have fun.

The music the guy listened to had to be deafening. It was not only a danger for his eardrums, but also posed a threat to his parents, sitting on the front seat and ignoring their pissed, menacingly staring son. It was the middle of the 80s; Jean Kirschstein was sitting in what had to be the car with the worst air-conditioning in all of West-Germany and he had just started to like AC/DC and to hate this summer with burning passion. So that was that.

Nevertheless, he didn’t always hate the idea of the friggin’ summer following his last school year. Instead of going on the lame-ass Hungary trip with his parents, like he was forced to now, he had real summer plans. At least they were not as mortifying as this: He actually wanted to road trip to Italy with his friends – all four of them – but then first his car decided that it was finally too old to deal with any longer and then, Ymir and Christa decided they had the intense need for some girl time. Jean thought that was bullshit – he wasn’t sure what _girl time_ normally involved, but he was sure that it wasn’t making out all the time.

Then, Connie and Sasha abandoned him too and there he was, damned to be stuck in a holiday home at the Balaton with his parents because they “didn’t want him to sulk all his holiday by himself”. Actually, he had been fine with being alone. Alone meant no one bugging him, music as loud as he wanted to and not having to hide his general loss of involvement in his future.

Now, while he stared out of the window of the car at the Hungarian landscape, which was boring to no end, he just hoped for his parents to stop unnerving him as soon as they were finally there. They didn’t tell him much (well, except ordering him to pack), but he hoped it wouldn’t be as the last, horrible night, where they were crammed together in the smallest hotel room he’s ever seen in Brno. By four o’clock in the morning he believed he had already sweated his eyeballs out of his head, because apparently, there was no such thing as a simple fan in the Eastern Bloc.

He groaned at the memory, which gained him an admonishing look of his father. “I’m sure you’re going to have a great time” His mother said. Oh, so she was going to be the good cop this time. She sounded almost as exhausted as he felt, so he bit back a snarky remark. “There will be a lot of other teenagers.” Yeah, great, because that went along fabulously even when he was in his own country. “And you should relax before you start the college.” He thought that being here with his parents would hardly be helpful to get him less angry, but before he could say anything, his father stated “Looks like we’re almost there.”

The red Citroën passed a beat up sign saying “Wilkommen!” and “Balatonfüred”. The street was mostly empty for the most time, and then they entered the crammed city center. Or he supposed at least that it was the center, what with the hotels, signs for food and arrows pointing towards the beach. They finally came to a stop in front of a hotel (“I thought it was a holiday home, Mum” – “It is, Jean, we’re just supposed to get the keys here.”) and he jumped out, more or less enthusiastic about finally escaping the dense air in the car. And then the heat hit him. I felt as if he was being microwaved to a point where he knew he’d get sunburn almost instantly.

When they finally made it to the holiday home, which was, to his surprise, a two-floored house, the sun was already setting. Unable to do anything after he carried in all the bags while his dad searched for a shady place to park the car (hint: there was no shade whatsoever) and his mum hopped from room to room, checking the furniture and whatnot, he dropped on my bed (which was mercifully on a different floor than his parents’ one).

“Do you want to go eat with us, Jean?” his mum called. Jean scowled into his pillow before denying that. The heat made him bleary and everything except hungry. When he heard them leaving, he decided to take a nap.

Considering that his parents obviously subdued their wish to have a holiday in Africa by going to Hungary, which was apparently almost as hot as hell, too, he slept well. And by that he meant that he only woke up to the voices of other people next to his window. This was weird, because it was a given fact that his room was on the second floor and the voices decidedly were next to it, too.

He hopped out of bed, putting his T-Shirt on again, and opened the dark curtains. When he ripped open the balcony door, he heard a terrified shriek, a muffled thump and rustling, followed by a “Are you alright, Armin?” Jean, who wasn’t one to falter, went on the balcony – to his amazement, even though it was night, it still was balmy – and looked down the parapet. What he saw puzzled him for about a second, then it made him angry:

There were three people, presumably his age, two guys and a girl. One of them was lying on the ground – he assumed that was “Armin”, the reason for the thumping noise – and the others bent over him worriedly, their faces hidden.

“What the hell were you doing on my balcony?” Jean yelled down, in German. They turned around abruptly and he’d found their facial expressions funny if it wasn’t for them trying to break and enter. On his first day of vacation. His parents should’ve listened to Connie when he told them that there was an astronomical crime rate around here and they should be worried for their car all the time.

“I’ve asked you a question!” he yelled again. His parents were not back yet, so he wasn’t afraid of waking anyone up. There was no one around, anyway. In a spur of a moment he hopped down the balcony himself, landing more softly than Armin had managed in his panic.

“You’re German?” the guy who wasn’t Armin asked. He had dark hair and a menacing facial expression, as if Jean had been the one to be on his balcony. “Yes, idiot, I’m German; as are you, apparently. You haven’t answered my question, though.”

Armin, who was really petite for a guy and had long blond hair in a ponytail, shot me an apologetic look about the same second the dark haired guy started yelling “Who are you calling an idiot, asshole?”  
“Eren, stop.” the girl said. “He probably should be upset – We were on his property, you know.” She was pretty, and Asian, he noticed, with straight black hair barely touching her shoulders and a neutral facial expression. “You still are on my property.” he said. “So, I’d like an explanation.”

The dark haired guy, Eren, looked at me as if I was something unpleasant. “What’s his deal?” Jean asked Armin, who brushed dirt of his shorts. “Don’t worry” he said, smiling slightly “That’s his normal facial expression. Maybe your accent surprises him.” Jean eyed him curiously because of his careful wording. “You’ve got a problem with how I talk?” he asked, taunting.

“Where are you from, anyway?” Eren asked, sounding pissed.  
“Woah, slow down. You might want to start with names. I could still sue you, you know.”  
Armin clapped a hand over Eren’s mouth and said “Well, I’m Armin. This is Eren and this is his adoptive sister, Mikasa.” “I’m Jean. And I’m from Stuttgart, if anyone wants to know.” he said pointedly towards Eren, who angrily shook Armin’s hand away.

“So, what were you doing on my balcony, Armin?”  
He blushed, looking up the façade of the house. “Well, we were under the impression it was still empty, so we wanted to climb in.”  
“You say that as if it’s a regular thing to break into other people’s houses.”  
Mikasa rolled her eyes slightly, but enough for me to see it.  
“Just this one. Your balcony door opens very easily from outside. And we did it, well, once or twice maybe.”

“But why?” he asked incredulously.  
“For fun, dumbass” Eren chimed in “Ever heard of fun? Well, I don’t think so, looking at your face.”  Jean was about to make a nasty remark, but then the curiosity won.  
“You have fun in an… empty holiday home?”  
“That house is a holiday home?”

“What do you think; that I moved to Hungary? Who’d do that?” Jean shook his head in disbelief.  
“We just had a little party.”  
“Don’t you have one yourself?” he asked all three of them, raising an eyebrow.

“That one’s so small you can hardly fit 6 beds in there, let alone dance or smoke or do anything. Hell, I’m happy if I’m out of it for the day.” Eren said, shrugging. “How many people are you in there, anyway?”  
“Just me and my parents.”

They all stared at him and he started to feel weird. “What? Do I have something in my hair or what?” he gripped his mouse brown mess, but it felt no different.  
“It’s just… what do you need all the space for?” Armin asked tentatively. If he thought that house was big for a holiday home, than what would they think of his parents’ house in Berlin?

“I think we should head back.” Mikasa said quietly “The others will be waiting.” The two guys nodded.  
Jean sighed, taking them in “I’ll just forget the thing with the house, okay? Just don’t scare me like that again.” Armin blushed again, shrieking a “Sorry” before he went away with the others, leaving Jean to scale his own wall like a thief in the night. And now, he wasn’t even tired anymore.

The next morning, having hardly slept, he shuffled down the staircase to have breakfast with his parents, still thinking about the weird German teenagers he met in the night.

“How was your evening?” he asked, sliding into a seat on the terrace, grabbing a marmalade bun and a cup of coffee. His mom started to idly chat about how the food was brilliant and how they’d taken a wall along the beach and all and he started to zone out.  
“Did you do anything, Jean?” his father asked with an unfamiliar tinge of empathy in his voice. “Nah, just sleep.” he said. He would be damned if he mentioned any wall climbing idiots during the family breakfast.

Later, his mum said that she wouldn’t force him to stick to them for the whole three weeks, so he basically had the freedom of doing whatever the hell he liked. Most of all, he liked to listen to loud music while painting aggressive oil canvases, but that was out of option here.

He just decided on going to the beach then, because there was quite frankly no other way. He scowled at the thought of being out in the sun, but somehow the prospect of staying indoors was even more depressing. Rummaging through his suitcase, he found his swimming trunks. While he put them on with a sleeveless shirt, he stared at himself in the mirror. There was the skinny, brown haired guy with the bored expression, he thought, to anger him again. He honestly hated his image, because he was neither attractive nor interesting to look at. His plainness, he thought, must be the reason why not even his friends wanted to stay with him this summer. They could look for more colorful choices while they were still able to, to make new friends before college started this autumn anyway.

Aggravated, he looked away, putting on his headphones and finding a cassette in his backpack resembling his mood before he grabbed a towel and headed out. The sun made him blink rapidly while he walked down the narrow road. While he looked around, he saw the full (not existing) splendor of the holiday complex. Apart from the Kirschstein’s holiday home, the buildings lining the street were small bungalows, all painted in the same dull brown, all having the same frosted glass doors. There were no plants, just dirt and patches that might’ve been grass at some point before the sun mercilessly roasted it. All in all, it wasn’t a pleasant site. It served a purpose, sure, but that was about it. Watching the little huts go by, he imagined sleeping in one of those things without air-conditioning, perhaps to be eaten alive by mosquitos in the night.

He thought of Eren, Mikasa and Armin and wondered if they spent their nights in a thing like this before being angry at himself for thinking about them. You don’t know them, he scolded himself, they have criminal energy. They are not the kind of people you want to spend any time with. If he was honest, he wanted to spend time with Connie. Connie, who was silly and had an easy laughter, made Jean think that at least he couldn’t be excluded. He was there, he made him laugh and he put up with his moods. He was his best friend for a reason.

With groups of people, like the three he encountered, he had bad connotations. If he was in an already existing group, he was prone to be the third wheel, or, more fitting, the fourth. He was the odd one out, not only because of his passive-aggressive behavior, but because often the people saw him and made him an ass in their minds before they even got to know him.

That in mind, he sat down under a tree on his towel, listening to Bruce Springsteen until he thought his batteries began to wane already. His mind was set on enjoying his alone time. He closed his eyes (swearing to himself that he would buy shades soon, before his eyes were permanently harmed) and thought of how he sort of felt nice. Very nice indeed, without anyone telling him to smile and to pick a lucrative job and to think at all and… Something hit his head.

He groaned, snapping his head around to see the cursed object that ripped his earphones down. He stood up, setting one foot on the volleyball that apparently was flung towards him, before someone stumbled backwards into him and launched them both into the tree he was sitting under. Hitting his head on the roots, he tried to push the dead weight on him down.

Instead, the guy turned around. Jean was about to say something along the lines of “Can you please look where you’re going before you knock people over left and right like a fucking bulldozer, dickhead?”, but that somehow got stuck in his head when he looked at him. Freckles, he thought, he had freckles. And then he passed out.

“Oh shit!” he heard someone saying when he finally tried to open his eyes again. He was angry – did he really just faint like a girl. To cope with the shame of that he had to do something. For example sit up and walk the fuck away.  
“No, don’t stand up yet” a soft hand pressed him down again “You hit your head a bit hard, I think.” He opened his eyes completely now, staring at the same freckled face he had when his lights went out. The guy had soft brown eyes and his mouth was curled into an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry for knocking you out. It really wasn’t intentional. I just wanted to get the ball.”

“That was your fucking volleyball?” Jean exclaimed, angry again. “Yeah, umm, sorry again. My friend’s a lousy shot.” “Looks like it” he groaned, sitting up slowly. “I’m Jean, anyway” he held out his hand. “Marco”, the freckled one said.

It’s been a while since he saw someone smile that genuinely at him, he thought, still a bit dizzy. “Anyway, can I make it up to you or something?” he asked. Jean shrugged. He didn’t bleed or anything, so he thought it might’ve been just the heat connected to the hit that made him pass-out. There wasn’t anything to make up for, explicitly.  
“I’ll buy you an ice-cream, come on.” holding out his hand, he pulled Jean up.

They walked in silence for a while. Marco must’ve been here for a while longer than him, because he navigated through the street shops, tiny restaurants and dilapidated buildings effortlessly, while Jean hopelessly tried to remember the way back. “So, you’re German, too, huh?” Marco asked, apparently one for easy talk. His smile made it easy to talk with him, Jean realized. It was very charismatic.

“Uh, yeah, I’m from Stuttgart.” he said. “You?” “Ah, it’s just a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, near Leipzig”  
“What, you’re from Saxony?” Jean asked, genuinely interested. He never met anyone from the GDR. I mean, his parents told him that there were a lot of them going on vacation to Hungary too, but he never entertained the idea of talking to them at all.

“Yeah, I am.” he frowned a little. “Is that a problem?”  
“No, I just” he stared at his shoes “Never met someone from East Germany.” His brain tried to scramble up some facts he knew about East Germany. They were socialist, they lived behind the wall, and they hated everything Western. That wasn’t a reliable thing to go on. He pitied them, of course, but he wasn’t politically interested enough to want to change something. The initiative, as his parents liked to say, had to come from the “lousy communists” themselves. They did enough, they intonated. What they did, he didn’t ask. That would’ve made them mad, and he respected his parents enough to not piss them off just for the sake of rebellion. Wasted effort, that was.

“What kind of ice cream do you want?” Marco asked finally, ignoring my remark. “Pistachio” Jean said, relishing his wrinkled nose. “Why would you eat that?” he asked, handing him the cone nevertheless. “I just like it.”

They sat down on a bench, eating their ice cream in a comfortable silence. (Marco got chocolate, which was a bit boring – Jean couldn’t make fun of plain, old chocolate ice cream.) “So, you’ve never met someone from our side of the wall?” So he did want to talk about that.

“There wasn’t an opportunity.”  
“I understand” Marco said, smiling softly “They don’t let us out to casually talk to you, I guess.” He had a light tone, but there was some frustration, too. That was only understandable – no one was able to live in a state like this, fenced in like prisoners, and not be frustrated about it.

“So, how is the village you live in?”  
“It’s a hellhole. There’s only me, like six other people our age, our families and that’s that. A few people less and I’d call it incestuous.” Jean laughed, imagining living in a place like this. He’d always enjoyed the city, because he could be either anonymous or bold and there was always something to do. He was grateful that his parents weren’t like some of those hippies moving to the countryside to give their children a “sheltered upbringing” – that sounded just like a cult.

“How old are you, then?”  
“19” He was older than Jean? Maybe the smiling face made him seem younger, but he had problems of thinking of him as older. Also as taller, although he was quite certainly a few centimeters above Jean.  
“Are you here on a family vacation, then?” Jean asked. Marco smiled as he saw Jean looking at his face. A bit of chocolate ice cream was still up the right corner of his mouth. He looked adorable, Jean thought irritated before he turned away to look at the relatively quiet street again.  
“A family vacation? God, no. That would be so lame. I mean, you don’t know my parents, Jean, but really, if they were here, it would be a catastrophe.” he laughed openly at the mere idea “No, I’m here with my friends. One of their parents works for the youth travel agency of the GDR, so we got the vacation places. It’s pretty cool.”  
Jean knew nothing of vacation places or state travel agencies, but he did feel like a git for being here with his parents.

“Are your parents that horrible?”  
“Well, not horrible. But they wouldn’t like you; that’s a fact.” He grinned, getting the offense.  
Jean put his arms in front of his chest. “And why is that?” He didn’t add that parents generally didn’t like him. He wasn’t a good influence with his messy haircut, his lacking desire for anything and his general excessive use of cuss words. The parents of his friends just put off with him because they’d known him for all of his life and just blocked out his words as they did with their own children.

“Well, for one you listened to AC/DC, I heard that while I ran over you. For the other part, they wouldn’t like you out of scrupulousness – you are embodiment of the class enemy just for being from Stuttgart.” Although he understood his German just fine (although it had a lovely Saxonian tint he knew better than to make fun of) he understood only half of what he was saying. That probably was because he never paid attention to anyone talking about their socialist half of the country, saying sooner or later the economy will tip over the focal point and then, with them, their _antifaschistischer Schutzwall,_ whatever that meant.

“Enemy, eh?” he grinned. “So, shouldn’t you be all antagonistic conflict then?”  
Marco raised both eyebrows, then gestured dramatically while saying

_“O Jean, Jean! Wherefore art thou Romeo?_

_Deny thy country and refuse thy democracy._

_Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my friendship,_

_And I’ll no longer be a Communist.”_

Jean blinked rapidly. “Does this mean I have to poison myself later? Because I’m not into that.” He grinned, thinking of something “You’ll make a brilliant Juliet, though” “Oh, shut up” Marco said, hitting him on the arm. They didn’t speak of how dorky it was to quote Romeo and Juliet in that twisted way and also not at what it implied.

They walked a bit back towards the beach, talking about the heat and the general brown-ness of the shallow water, when Marco stopped and looked at him. “Do you have anything to do tonight?” he asked.  
“Nothing I couldn’t postpone” like a dinner with his parents at this lovely little “rustical Hungarian Csarda”.    
“Great, well, we could hang out” he blushed, as if he caught himself in the middle of a mistake “With my friends, I mean. They are amiable, well” he chuckled “If you get to know them, they are. And you’re bored anyway, you did say so and” he did get faster towards the end.

“Eh, Marco?” Jean said to stop the flooding, weird words. “I’ll meet your friends. Gladly. I mean, come on, if they are all cute communists like you” _Cute_? Where did that come from? You wanted to say _cool_ , Jean, _cool_. Not cute. _Definitely_ not cute. But he said cute, because Marco blushed again. “Then I will of course meet them.” That definitely didn’t save the ship from hitting the frickin’ iceberg, though.

“That’s – That’s great.” Marco seemed to have caught himself again. “How late is it anyway?” I looked at the clock, telling me that it was five P.M.  
Marco widened his eyes in shock. “Shit, I didn’t even tell them where I was going.” After one of those guys hit me with the ball, possibly. “They’ll be worried.”

We went down to the beach again, now less crowded and without little children making everything muddy and noisy. There were a few people still sitting around and passing the dreaded volleyball around, he noticed. “Hey guys!” Marco called, causing them to turn around, Jean only then realizing why half of them looked, even their backs, vaguely familiar to him.

When he saw Eren dropping the ball, he had to adjust his face to look normally.

“Seriously, what the hell?” 


	2. Take me Down to the Paradise City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They meet up with the rest of the group, stories are shared and the thing starts rolling.

Marco laughed behind him. “I take it you know each other?”

“Like hell we know each other!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t know your friends are criminals” he said, using the last three words to point at Eren, Armin and Mikasa separately to prove his point.

“Criminals?” Marco didn’t seem to catch up too fast. He tried looking at his other friends – two guys, one very tall, lean and tanned, the other one all muscly and blonde – but Eren’s shit-eating grin made it impossible to distract himself for too long. Mikasa still looked unfazed – maybe that was her goal in life, how would he know? And Armin smiled non-committal.

“So, who of you hit me with a ball today?” he asked, having a guess already. “Um, that would be me.” Armin said slowly “I didn’t know it was you, though, I’m just horrible at playing volleyball.”   
“Aha! You do know each other!” Marco said triumphantly, looking from Armin’s red face to his.

“Not really.” Jean admitted “They tried to break and enter at my house yesterday.” One of the others, the tall one, seemed to choke on his spit and nearly had to be resuscitated, while Marco blushed brilliantly. Seeing him blush, Jean thought, really made his day worth something. His blush was unique, it was so… pure. And then he shouted at himself for saying such creepy-ass stuff. As long as nobody read his mind, the weird concoctions of his brain would be safe, though.

“Why are you blushing?” he inquired, sitting down next to him in the grass. All the others joined; making some sort of weird circle he only saw when his old schoolmates smoked their heads off. “So, you are the show-off, then?” he said it not without hesitation, to be fair.

Instead of directing his anger at Marco, he looked at Eren. “If you had to coin a name for me, why did it have to be show-off?”  
“Why do you look at me? How come you assume I named you?”   
Jean made a wild gesture, saying “Oh, you have such a face, I just know.”   
“Oh, you-“

“Could you stop?” Mikasa asked calmly.

“But what did I even brag about?” he asked exasperated. He interacted totally normal with them. Hell, he didn’t even phone the police.   
“It’s because of the house.” Armin said. “See, you live in this thing with your parents, while we literally have two rooms half as big as yours and we share them.”

“What, you have six people sleeping in one of those shoebox-sized bungalows?” he asked, genuinely shocked, pointing in the vague direction of the bungalow street. They all nodded, totally serious. “You must die at night.” he resigned.   
“The only reason we would die at night is because some people can’t let others sleep!” Eren said, throwing an evil glare in the direction of the two unnamed guys, who discreetly moved from resuscitation to holding hands. It was, quite frankly, cute. But Jean really didn’t want to imagine them doing anything further than that, let alone be in the room next to them when it happened.

“Eren, could you stop sex-talking everyone?” Mikasa asked. Eren blushed furiously; throwing the ball at her (which she caught without faltering) and saying “I did not use the word sex in that sentence.”

“You didn’t have to. Everyone – even Jean – knew what you were talking about.”

Marco cleared his throat after apparently deciding we were over the “show-off” debate. “So, these are my friends.” “I noticed” I said, smiling directly at him.

“You know Armin, Mikasa and Eren, because they tried breaking into your house in order for us to have a party in it.” “Next time, you could probably even ask” Jean interjected “And these guys are Bertl” he gestured towards the dark-haired one “and Reiner.” When Jean directly looked at them, they stopped holding hands for a second. A not very noticeable second.

He wondered if he could be brave enough to do that in public. Okay, at the moment just their friends were there, but there had to be other people who knew. Jean could never just say “Ah, look, I’m in love with a guy!” He would be scared, confused and, most of all, embarrassed. Luckily, Jean never had a problem like that – although his first girlfriend had been a disaster (namely because she was into girls, too) he never had the urge to roll across a meadow with some guy.

“How long are you guys staying?” he asked, most of all to stop thinking about rolling around in any way. Marco shot him a weird glance because he already told him, but he probably just thought he was trying too hard to make a conversation. Little did he know that he was terrible at conversing – that he talked to Marco must’ve been Marco’s natural talent to make people feel comfortable around him. Jean, although he didn’t know him for long and their introduction was the freckled guy crashing into him, felt himself already accepted, which was a rare feeling for him, to say the least.

A part of his problem was that even though on the outside he was just a normal guy, when people came to know him better, they were a bit freaked out. The last time he tried to befriend a guy that wasn’t Connie, he was met with the unasked question why a straight guy would be into profane finger painting like he was. (He wasn’t that good, but it certainly was a tad better than profane finger painting).

“Four weeks” Reiner said. He had a deep, jovial voice that intimidated Jean a bit. He sounded so much more grown up than he did himself that he felt like a mousy stick figure. That was the most palpable description he came up in front of the mirror anyway. He sighed inwardly. He’d never grow out his mediocre height and no matter how much food his mum produced, he wouldn’t gain a healthier weight. The first and the second growth spurt passed him without much spurting going on at all and he just had to learn how to deal with it, now. Looking around, he realized they all were a bit more muscly, more trained (even Armin, who seemed fragile, but still somehow athletic) than him. Marco himself had, while not being that much taller than him, still a better built. Were they feeding them different food across the Wall or what?

“I’ll stay three.”   
“That’s cool.” Armin said now “We could do stuff together. You can play us your illegal records.” “Illegal records?” “Yeah, you know. American stuff.” “I don’t have any stuff illegal. I pay for my cassettes and all.”   
Marco put a hand on his shoulder. “We didn’t want to fluster you or anything. It’s not illegal at your place, but for us, it is.”   
“But why?”  
“Because of what I said earlier, remember?” The thing with the class enemy. He did remember that. What he would also remember was the feeling of Marco’s hand on his body. He just had a feeling.

Later, they told him their actual evening plans. They wanted to barbecue and swim and… actual, real holiday stuff. The things he planned to do with his friends in Italy. He told them so, a bit more wistful than he wanted to.

“Then tell us about your friends.” Marco prompted, sitting down beside him again. “My best friend’s Connie” he started. “Is that a dude?” Eren asked. “Yeah, he is. Well, whatever. I know him since kindergarten, which is probably the reason we are still friends. He is funny, but a bit too quirky to be really popular. However, one day, he brought Sasha. Sasha is very cool, but he found her while she was stealing candy in the local supermarket. They became friends because he helped her smuggle out more chocolate than she could have carried herself. And when he brought her along, I didn’t have the chance to resist befriending her. She later went to the same Highschool and she helped me to get through a lot of boring French classes. Also, she always had comfort food around if I felt bad, so she’s generally a great person.” Jean smiled fondly. “You learned French in school?” “No, actually, I learned it from my dad. I just chose to do it in school, it was the laziest option. What’s your second language?”

They all answered in the same moment, saying “Russian.” Well, yes, he could’ve expected that.

“My two other friends are Ymir and Christa” “God, you all have weird-ass names” Eren mumbled. “We first met them when we started Highschool. Ymir was being harassed for being tomboyish and Christa for never speaking up for herself, but relying on Ymir. What the other classmates didn’t know, though, was that they are both amazing. And also, that they are in love, since, ever.” Which they didn’t know themselves until maybe a year earlier, when Connie finally pushed them to confess, but we were all happy the way it worked out.

After talking about that for a while, they started making a fire. It was not a real, tall fire like the ones used to burn Christmas trees after the holidays, but it was big enough to burn sausages black and to turn buns into charcoal. The food was just semi-edible, but it was nice having actual people around me, not just music and paintbrushes. (That had its perks, too, but it wasn’t a thing for every day. Sometimes, he craved company. And sometimes, he wished he had the talent to get himself company, not being thrown into it by, for example, being knocked out by a freckled dork.)

The talk wandered from my friends to their childhood (With Reiner telling embarrassing stories about Bertolt being chased by geese – their families all seemed to be connected to farming somehow and Eren saying that their elementary school teacher didn’t know Armin was a boy despite his name until they were like 8 and had to do swimming practice) and from their childhood to their hobbies. Or at least what I assumed where hobbies:

“You all seem really busy with farm work and technical work and work in general. Don’t you have free time? Can’t you decide what to do? That’s like – I quote my mum now – the privilege of the youth” They shook their heads. “What do you do in your free time, then?” Marco asked him softly. “I, uh, do have a hobby.” “Yeah, we got that, dork.” “I paint.”

“You paint?” Marco asked, as if he didn’t finish the sentences. “What do you paint? How do you paint? Why do you paint?” Jean was often asked that question, because being an artist wasn’t considered an actual career in the general middle class he grew up in. It was neither something that put bread on the table nor something that benefitted the society. Or so his father said when he was in an exemplary bad mood.

Jean tried to say something, nonetheless. He couldn’t talk about portraits or anything – that wasn’t what he was doing at all. “I paint oil on canvas” he began to say “As for the other questions, most of the times it’s _l’appel_ _du vide._ ” He registered to late that saying that may have sounded pretentious under the fact that they didn’t speak French. But he couldn’t explain it otherwise. Actually, he couldn’t explain it at all, because it was a feeling, and he was no good in talking about feelings.

Gladly, they just went over it, because Marco wouldn’t let the mood darken too much. When the others went for a swim – which was totally safe, since the water was only knee high until you were in the middle of the lake and the light was still waning – he just kept sitting there, looking at the small fire and the burnt food. “We’ll have to work on that” Marco said, pointing at the blackened meat.

“What’s wrong, Jean?” he asked, giving him a little “Spill it, boy” look. It was almost compelling enough to make him say it. “I just don’t like to swim, that’s all.” he answered instead.

“Yeah, I thought so when you were listening to music rather than swimming. On a beach, when it’s like 35 degrees.” his smile was soft, but he could still see that he was missing something.

“But I don’t think it’s about that. Did we say something that made you uncomfortable? We can be quite intrusive, trust me, I know that.”

“You’re all fine, Marco. I enjoyed myself.” And he really did. Marco, looking concerned at him, made sure of that. He surely wasn’t even aware of how nice of a person he was. He stared at the others, at Mikasa, with more power than she looked at the first glance, tossing Eren headfirst into the water and at Reiner, who looked as if he was about to kiss Bertl.

“I really hope that’s true” Marco said, a little edge in his voice “Because you might not think so after this.” “What?” Jean asked, confused, but Marco had already scooped him up (he had been right – he had more muscle than Jean), walking so fast in the direction of the water that he couldn’t resist and flung himself with Jean still clinging to him into the lukewarm water.

“What did you do that for?” Jean asked while he stood up. Marco stood next to him, smiling like a victor in the Olympic Games and the dark hair hanging down his forehead made him look like a puppy. “Don’t overthink it.” he said “You were overthinking it.”

Well, he was right on that account. “And if it really was just because you had to put out your shirt” Oh no, he knew, Jean thought ashamed, his face beginning to burn “Then you can relax now. Come on, it’s fine. You’re fine.” He was imitating what he said before about the group, Jean realized. And it was, to his own surprise, working.

“I think you have an unfair advantage” I said to Marco, who now paddled back and forth a bit, as if he was unsure what to do now that we were in the water. “And what’s that supposed to mean?” “You all do farm work. Regularly. So you sort of have to look as if you can throw hay bales around, because you basically really do that.” He emphasized hay bales. Marco laughed. “No, I can assure you that we don’t throw hay bales around. Rubber boots, well, that’s another story, but hay bales? God, do you really think we have nothing better to do?”

The thought of Marco throwing boots around while grinning like a little kid (because, let’s face it, that was the only kind of grin he could pull off to that kind of activity) made him smile, too. “We do normal things as well. We get drunk in our little village club – you couldn’t imagine the night we had to carry drunk Armin home – we make out, we smoke… and we march for the country, for communism. Because that's the way it is.”

After he said that, he started flinging water at Jean and soon they were all fighting a water war which lasted a while, until they finally started getting cold (which was after a long while, the lake was basically bathtub-warm) and before they said goodnight, Marco offered to walk him home. “I want to see the big show-off’s house, too, of course” he said winking.

They walked down the silent bungalow street, Jean asking where their place was. “It’s way back there” he said, pointing towards the end of the street, indicating that it was even behind Jean’s holiday home. “And, believe it or not, it’s even smaller than this” he gestured towards the small bungalows lining the street. “I don’t think that’s possible.” Jean said “And even if it was, how do you fit in it? You are six people.” He smiled.

“Consider this: Bertl and Reiner get one room and the other four people share the other room.”   
“Really?”   
“Of course. I wouldn’t like to be the one lying next to them while they do god knows what.”   
“Why did it have to be you?”  
“I couldn’t divide Armin, Mikasa and Eren. They’d skewer me. Also, they rather put up with me sharing their miserably little room than me being the third wheel in the next room.”   
“It just sounds very unpleasant.” Jean said, shaking his head. He wouldn’t know if he could do this.

“Well, the beds are also not with normal mattresses, but filled with straw.”  
“What?” Jeans head spun around just in time to see Marco laughing.   
“Man, I can tell you anything, you won’t even question it. No, they are normal beds. However” he said in a more serious tone after having stopped laughing “that happened on my first family trip.”

Finally, they stopped at the end of the street. “So that’s the big show-off, huh?” he said skeptical “Well, according to what I heard, I expected a swimming pool, at least. And marble. Eren was mindlessly exaggerating.”   
“I bet he was just angry that I let Armin’s ass fall down my balcony.” he grinned.

They stood there a bit awkwardly, neither of them knowing what to do now. Maybe Jean should just go in; wave a bit and say see ya? Marco, however, began talking first:

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” he let it sound like a question, but as if Jean’s furious nodding wasn’t an indicator, the firm belief behind the request sure was.

When Jean turned around, fishing in his pockets for the keys, Marco grabbed his arm and pulled him into a hug. Unsure what to do, he clamped one arm a bit awkwardly around him while the other flailed with the key in his hand. He tried not to smell Marco too much, but on the other hand, the feeling of him pulled against him, still damp from the swimming, and his hair, which smelled like lake, sun and molten caramel, was a bit overwhelming at first and too comfortable for his liking later.

He definitely shouldn’t like smelling another guy that much, he thought, long after Marco walked back, and hugging a guy shouldn’t be so special. Hell, other guys do that too. Maybe he just got overly excited because he’s never been one to make new friends quickly?

Hurrying into the house, he threw himself unto the bed. There, he thought of two things:

The first was that his Walkman was gone and he was sure that Marco still had the thing. Thinking of Marco listening to his music was an unwelcome thought, also because of the second thing. Jean realized that he, most likely dazed from Marcos smell (he would later dub it the ‘Freckled Jesus’) went hard. That wasn’t a good thing. Obviously it wasn’t a good thing. How was he supposed to act around this guy when he had to think of “Oh, last night I had a boner because I fucking hugged you. Totally normal, right? Say, does that happen to you too?” Well, that would be brilliant. And if he took care of that now, he would probably never be able to masturbate without the thought of Marco in swim shorts ever again.

It only went downhill from that point on: Deciding that he wouldn’t be able not to do anything about it, he decided to get rid of his pants and just do it, goddamnit.

With that, he finally gripped his cock and began stroking himself, Marcos smell still in his nose, making him moan while he started to move faster. He shuddered, closing his eyes at the mere thought of Marco doing this to him and he – he – in his mind it was Marco touching him, gripping him tight, Marco, with that damn hot freckles all over his damn hot - shivering, he comes all over his hand and his still wet shirt, think of Marco and his perfect lips being so damn close to him while he was busy with fainting.

Wiping his hand, he stood up, trying to comprehend. Why did he just jerk off because of Marco, a guy he hardly knew for one day? It must be the heat and the hormones driving him crazy, he thought, trying to forget how good it felt. When he got rid of the shirt, he flopped himself back unto the bad, thinking of Marco. Thinking of screwing things up with Marco, thinking of getting attached to fast and thinking of feeling anything at all.

He stared at the ceiling, this time without being interrupted by Armin scaling the wall, and the more he thought of it, the more it became clear to him that he had to avoid thinking about Marco like that at all. They should be friends. Just friends.

And in the night, when he stared at the ceiling, he breathed out one word that resonated and died before someone could hear it.

_“Scheiße.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Call me out on my mistakes, because I have no beta and it's the middle of the night.


	3. I bet you know I'm glad to be back in black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We have Jean family backstory, Marco the nurse and a roadtrip

The next morning, Jean woke up to a sunray hitting his face directly as if to blind him and he groaned as he remembered that he forgot to close the blinds. He practically hoisted himself into the shower before he crammed for the second pair of swim trunks he had and headed down the stairs.

His parents were already sitting there, as if they couldn’t break their routine even if it was their holiday, and looked at him expectantly as he dropped down his seat. He shuffled so he could sit under the parasol they put up, but when he looked up again, they still watched him.

“Good morning” he said, grabbing the honey to spread it over his toast. “Good morning, Jean” his mom said, smiling “What did you do yesterday? We didn’t even see you.”

He nearly choked on his bread, remembering yesterday night. “Oh, um, I went swimming. Then I met some teenagers.”

Her answer came victoriously “Oh, I knew it. Where were they from?”  
“Saxony”  
“You met some communists, son?” his father asked, looking up from his newspaper for the first time. Jean wondered where he got the German newspaper from. Were there so many German tourists that they sold the BILD in Hungary now?

“I don’t think they’re communists.” he said defensively. Well, at least not the aggressive picture of communism his father and the friends of his parents had. They also were hardly “dirty pigs”, as his grandpa would phrase it lovingly. Having fought in the war, only escaping the Russian imprisonment when Adenauer brought the last prisoners of war home in 1955, he still had a lot of burning resentment for everything that was farther east than Kassel. Jean, generally uninterested in his family to a point where they just ignored his presence, had a certain conflict with his grandpa. It started when Jean began to like Rock music, unconventional haircuts and painting, because his grandpa was a sample for authoritarian thinking and a hard misogynist, stating that Jean was a wimp for liking arts and being a conscientious objector (and doing community service instead). It culminated into Jean calling him a Nazi, which was the most taboo subject in the house of the Kirschsteins. They were his father’s parents, originally from Alsace-Lorraine (which was the reason they spoke German and French). Their parents (who Jean never got to meet) moved from Strasbourg to Stuttgart, the treaty of Versailles forcing them to decide whether they were German or French. 

From the day he used the shunned N-word, he was the persona non grata in his grandparents’ house, his grandpa telling him that he was disinherited. 

“They are all communists” his father said dismissively, stressing the _all_ to a point where it was beyond discussion. Jean just sat back, determined to ignore his father as he usually did. “Anyway, they invited me to join their dinner, so I did.”

“Oh, Jean, then you should invite them too.” his mum said, ignoring the edge his father had in his voice and the cranky face Jean made. She was good in neglecting their moods, otherwise, she would’ve gone mad with both (or all three) stubborn Kirschstein men.

“How should I invite them? We don’t have food here, do we?”  
“I’m just going to give you some money – wait here” she said, sitting up, leaving him there to silently watch his father reading the newspaper. After a while, she turned up, putting the weird Hungarian money – Forint – into his hands. He had no idea how the exchange course was, but the D-Mark had to be worth a lot more since there were a lot of 100, 200 and 500 Forint bills.  
“You just have to think that around 160 Forint are 1 Mark” his mum explained. “But the food should be really cheap” she added.

The economy must’ve been worse than he’d thought at first. He wouldn’t be able to endure the breakfast for much longer, but he also felt weird for having a vacation with his parents without actually being around them. It seemed impolite, somehow, because they still paid for everything. Mercifully, he was released not much later by Armin popping up in the holiday home’s front yard, waving. “Hey, Jean!” he called. “Come on in” his mother said before he could head out and just leave them. Armin, surely because he didn’t want to seem impolite, walked up to the porch where they were sitting. Jeans father slowly put down the newspaper, arching his eyebrows when he first saw the blonde boy.

Armin, who was wearing a light blue undershirt tucked into his not-quite fitting, baggy shorts, was scrutinized by his dads look. Mr. Kirschstein looked displeasured at best, fully taking in the ponytail and the sloppy clothing. Jean felt bed for Armin, because he couldn’t know just how much attention his father paid to being immaculate. Jean’s wide, black T-Shirts and his tight Levis were barely tolerated.

He held out his hand nevertheless, smiling at both of Jean’s parents and saying “Good morning. I’m Armin Arlert.” “Lovely to meet you, Armin” his mother said, taking the hand that he still held up and shook it firmly. “I’m Annett Kirschstein, Jean’s mum.”

Armin turned to Jean now, smiling and rubbing his neck. “Well, Marco sent me to ask you if you want to come with us today.”  
“Yeah, sure. Where are we going?”  
“We planned on going to Budapest, but because that’s a long car trip, we want to stay for a few days. That’s the reason we wanted to ask you before we go. I mean, if you don’t want to we can-“

“No, no, I’m coming.” he said hastily. If they were gone for multiple days, then he would have to stick around here alone. With his parents, which wasn’t a great option, to be honest.  
“Jean?” his dad said, voice menacing. “Yeah?” he spun around, crossing his arms.  
“You might want to ask us first.”  
“Actually, I’m eighteen, so I don’t have to ask.”  
He looked behind him to see that Armin backed up a little, probably feeling the upcoming conflict.

“Since we’re still paying for your whole stay, you might want to rethink that.”  
Jean’s mum stepped between them, holding up her hands. “I think it’s lovely that you found a few friends so fast, so go if you like to.” she said softly “But pack a few things first.”  
“Is that okay, Armin?”  
“Yeah” he replied, shrugging and sitting down on the veranda chair his mum pointed at “I’ll just wait here then, I guess.” While he threw things in his backpack as fast as he could manage, he hoped that his father was civil enough not to make slurs against communism while he had Armin in his claws. He packed cassettes as well, thinking of the record thing Marco mentioned the other day, and then he ran down the staircase.

“Ah, honey” his mum said “I’ve got to give you a bit more money if you stay there for days” She pressed money into his hands while he observed Armin’s wide-eyed glance at the wad of cash. “Thanks, Mum” he said, hugging her. He waved awkwardly at his father, thanking him too. He didn’t look up from his newspaper, probably a bit mad that his authority was undermined by Annett.

While they walked around the house, Armin exhaled audibly. “Wow” Jean commented “My dad must’ve stressed you out.”  
“Well, he sure has certain opinions.” Armin said cautiously. “I wasn’t quite sure what to tell him.”  
“Just ignore it” he advised. Behind the house, there was only a dirt road and weeds, leading to another row of (what Marco said had been right) even smaller bungalows.

“Welcome to our holiday paradise” Armin joked, seemingly enjoying my stunned gaze. The bungalow (well, it was almost a hut, something about the size of a shed for gardening tools) had a fly screen door and was covered in splintering mud-brown paint.

He tried to imagine how they fit six people in there – and failed. “How the hell do you sleep in there? Where’s the kitchen? And the bathroom?” Armin, to his surprise, started laughing.  
“What do you think? Not in there, of course.”

“Huh?”  
“Well, there are shared facilities. And the food is provided in a canteen.” Shared facilities? Jean was happy that he didn’t have to share a shower with anyone -the thought alone creeped him out.

“Come on, I think the others are waiting.” he followed him through the open door. There was a very small hall with sandals strewn over the floor, leading through two different doors. “In the left one are Reiner and Berthold. We are in the other one.” He pointed at the open door. Jean looked through the door and was greeted by an angry Eren (“Why’d you bring him in here, Armin?”), Mikasa and a grinning Marco, waving down from a top bunk. “You’re coming, Jean? Cool.” Jean, however, was busy taking in the room. Seeing it, it was obvious they’d been here for a while – there were clothes on the floor and hanging down metal bedframes, drying towels on chairs and a card game on a foldaway table.

“It’s so tiny” Jean pointed out. There was barely enough room to stand between the two bunk beds and there was no place to put the clothes except their bags and the furniture. Also, the floor was a bit sticky. “I had it worse” Eren said. Uh-huh. He didn’t want to think of that, but saying that would’ve probably made him a snob. Perhaps he was a snob now.

“Come on, we’ve got to head out before the sun heats up the car too much.” Marco said, hopping down the railing. Jean tried not to eye Marco too obviously, still feeling slightly ashamed because of the last night and determined not to let himself slip like that again. They went outside, carrying a few backpacks with them.

“Shouldn’t we bring food” Mikasa said.  
“Nah, it’s just going to turn bad.” Marco said. “How are we supposed to cool it?”

While they walked to the parking lot, Marco told him that Bertolt and Reiner were already gone. “They should’ve taken another one of us, but none of us wanted to propose that.” he explained.  
“I want to ride shotgun” Eren threw in, earning him a murderous glare from Mikasa.

“Nah, Jean’s in the front, because he’s the guest.” Eren groaned and he smiled, though pitying the three of them crammed into the backseat a bit.

When they reached the parking lot, Marco made an excessive gesture before saying “Meet my pride and joy”. Following his reached out arms with his eyes, he saw a small brown car with a darker brown car roof. “It’s a great car” Marco added, seeing his lack of enthusiasm. “And I had an extraordinarily short waiting time.” Jean smiled because of his obvious happiness.

“You’ve got to explain that” he said, watching Armin put the backpacks in the small trunk. “My parents waited like, 10 years for their Trabi. But because they ordered one for me, I got it much earlier.” he beamed. So that was the famous Trabant, huh? He knew they were mass produced in the GDR, but he never saw one driving a car like that in the Federal Republic. It was a cute car, quite fitting for Marco, but he liked the more… streamlined models.

He opened the passenger door, waiting patiently for Eren, Armin and Mikasa to climb in the back seat since there were no rear doors. He seated himself, waiting for Marco to start driving. It was hot in the car, the sun still burning like it did the day before.

When they reached the motorway, he already started sweating, suddenly understanding why Armin only wore his undershirt. “So, Marco” he said to the smiling boy next to him “When are you going to turn on the AC?” “Just open the window, Jean.” he said. When he looked in the rear mirror, he saw them grinning. “You really don’t have an air conditioner?”

“What do you think this is, a Ferrari?” Eren pitched in.  
“How did you stand being in here so long when you drove down from Germany?” he asked, unbelieving. The window he winded down brought in the hot air from outside, only partially cool because of the low speed. Looking at the speedometer, he almost despaired.

“How long do you think this will take?” he asked, thinking of the 130 kilometers ahead of them. Jean realized he sounded like an impatient child, but he really wasn’t used to being uncomfortable, to sweating in the car or to cars generally moving as fast as his dad’s lawnmower. He would have to put out the cassettes pretty soon to keep him from grumping all over them. Even his long-period friends found him hardly enjoyable when he was in a mood.

“Dunno, maybe 2 or 3 hours.” Marco said, watching the street slowly passing by. “How long did you take driving here?” Jean asked, not taking the chance of nodding off while they were driving.

“About 15 hours, I imagine.” Mikasa said. “But we had to stop in between for refilling the tank, for eating and for crossing the border.” Jean imagined being crammed in that tiny car for more than half of a day. “Woah.” was his very intelligent response.

“Anyway” he cleared his throat “I brought my cassettes. We could listen to some of it, I guess? I mean, it’s really quiet, driving without music, right?” He pulled out his backpack, searching for his favorite record. “Although I assume you still have my favorite, because it was in my Walkman when I passed out?” He looked at Marco, who blushed a bit. “I, err, kinda listened to it last night. It was really good.” Jean grinned, thinking of Marco lying in his tiny-ass bunk bed listening to his cassette tape. It was a good thought.

“I’m sorry, but I think the batteries are empty.”  
“That’s no problem. I packed loads.”

He finally found the cassette he was looking for, one Connie gave him a year ago. It was a great mix, he had to admit that. “Wanna listen to it?” He held up the cassette, which had Connie’s untidy writing on it and a small red heart, which was presumably Sasha’s doing. “It’s a mix Connie made for me.”

“What’s on it?” Eren asked intrigued, ripping the mixtape out of his hands. “On the A-Side, there’s AC/DC, Queen and so on, the B-Side is a bit more psychedelic. It’s a bit heavy on David Bowie, so I guess that’s the side Sasha made.” “Sounds good” Mikasa commented from behind him.

“Is it complete?”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Well, in our mixtapes, we often miss the start of the songs, the radio people talk into it, that sort of happens.”  
“No, it’s all clear. You tape radio?”  
Marco made a half smile, putting the tape into the cassette deck. “Yeah, once a week we tape Bayern 3, but it’s sort of forbidden.”  
While “Runaway” from Bon Jovi started playing, Jean realized just to what extent the GDR censored the media.

“Do you have real records?” Marco asked while he tapped the steering wheel in the rhythm of Killer Queen. “Uh, yeah. I have a few, at home. For example the Queen compilation.”  
Jean watched Armin become starry-eyed in the back seat, Eren stating “Well, if we would sell that in Leipzig, we could earn like 100 East-Mark.”

They talked like this for a while, explaining Jean the function of the record-black market. Jean listened to their tales of stolen Western TV (Marco was pouting: “Well, at least you guys have parents who watch Western TV”), no telephones and forbidden branded clothing. Armin told him how he grew up at his grandfather’s house because his parents were shot while they tried escaping in 1970, leaving little 4-year old Armin behind. They had to be really desperate, Jean thought, for trying to escape over a border where they could expect directional mines and soldiers with the _Schießbefehl._

Sooner than he would’ve expected, they reached the city. Budapest was rippling in the heat, the dry fields lining the obsolete motorway slowly changing into prefabricated buildings. The _Plattenbau_ -estates were sort of familiar, a sight turning more frequent the more you head east. While there were sure buildings like that in Stuttgart, where Jean grew up, but crossing the GDR on this one class trip in the eighth grade to Berlin, he learned what a real landscape out of such buildings looked like.

He imagined that to the others, none of that looked out of place. It wouldn’t be a pleasant sight, but a usual one at least.

“So, where are we going to stay?” Jean answered as they approached the center of the city. Apartment buildings turned into the pretty, old buildings of Buda, the old town. “Usually, we would just share the car and the roof tent.” Marco said. _Roof_ tent? Who the hell invented things like that? “But I think for 7 persons, two cars are a bit crammed. Too crammed even for us to bear. So we gotta find a hostel or something.” Jean heard the distaste in his voice, but couldn’t place it.

“What’s the problem with that?” Jean asked, despite the fact he knew better. But he could never shut up when something like that was itching at the back of his mind. Seeing Marco being even slightly unnerved about something was weird – he could already tell that Marco wasn’t in a foul mood very often.

Marco, who obviously didn’t know where to drive now because he pulled into the next free parking spot he could find (here, his car didn’t look out of place – obviously Hungary imported the cute Trabis, too) and climbed out of the driver’s seat. The others followed him, thankful for being able to stretch their legs.

“I’m just a bit short on money” he said, answering Jeans question. “My job’s not paying that well.”  
“What kind of job do you do?” “I’m a nurse.” he said. “I did it to avoid the military service. But, let me tell you, it’s a shit job. The health care is not … extraordinary and I had to fight for getting the permission to leave for the summer.”

Jean eyed him, thinking of Marco taking care of patients, of Marco denying the military service in a country that was renowned for having everyone either in the army or in prison, and offered: “I could pay. It’s not as if I need the money, anyway.”  
“What are you, some sort of rich capitalist?” Eren asked.

He guffawed, staring at Eren “Yeah, because everyone in the Federal Republic has to be a capitalist who shits money, right?” he paused, looking at their faces “But yeah, my family does shit money.” That was the reason nobody cared for him just painting, not trying to achieve anything – he could still take the job of being a _professional heir_ , which was the term Connie thought of to make fun of Jean.

Marco looked to the ground, obviously stunned “I don’t really feel comfortable with that, Jean. We do have money, even if it’s not that much. We just have to search for cheap lodging.”  
“Aw, come on, Marco. I owe you.” Jean said, not wanting to be defeated “You introduced me to your friends without hesitating. Only a real nice person would do that, since I’m an ass.” Did he just say that out loud? Marco’s facial expression was stuck somewhere between laughing and blushing and Jean tried to look away just to be caught by Eren, who winked at him playfully. “Yeah, go tell the world, baby.”

In the end, they did decide Jean should pay. Well, Jean did decide and he was too stubborn to let the others win ground in an argument, so they just ceased to discuss it. Mikasa, who was the only one wearing a watch, looked at it concerned saying: “We were supposed to meet Reiner and Bertl half an hour ago at this famous pastry shop. Do you know which one, Armin?”

“Uh, Gerbeaud’s? We should go now, they probably miss us.” He said agitated.  
“Or not.” Eren said, eye-rolling.

“Guys, I have no idea how to drive there.” Marco said once he was behind the steering wheel again. “Driving here was easy enough because of the road signs, but finding a single pastry shop in here? No chance.” “Then how did they find it?” Jean asked confused.

“Bertolt’s dad was on a business trip here once and he told him about the cake. And the thing is, he told Reiner and Reiner sort of loves cake. Even if it’s cake he couldn’t afford in his life. They have the address, though, and marked it in the map. We only have the one map.” Where was that cake coming from now? These guys really were all over the place.

“It wasn’t very good thinking from our side” Armin said miserably, perhaps blaming himself of not thinking it through.

“We could just ask someone.” Jean proposed.  
Eren stared him down.  
“What?”  
“Can you speak Hungarian?”  
“No, but we could try English. Or you guys try Russian.”

In the end, they found someone to ask, asked them in a wild mix of German, English and Russian (Jean threw in French, too, but was shut down before he could scare away anyone) and they made it there, one hour late. Reiner and Bertolt, however, seemed completely unaware that the others were running late. Or maybe they gave up on waiting and figured out to make it worth their time. They were sitting on the steps of a fountain in front of a really large building, supposedly the pastry shop, making out. Passer-byes shot them dirty looks, but they looked just happy to be there.  Jean, if he had a sketch book, would’ve copied the scene right there. He’d sketch the bright sun-light, the children playing with the water around them and, in the center, the brightened couple, sitting on the steps in front of a house that resembled cream cake.

Jean might’ve sighed, but he did realize there were other people around him. Eren had his “Behold, the gays!” look on again and he probably would’ve made fun of him for finding them cute. Well, Connie would make fun of him, if he was there.

When Marco went to talk to them, Reiner broke the kiss and Bertl looked at them, a bit looking as if he was about to break out in a sweat and blush really hard. A peculiar reaction for someone who just made out in public, but whatever – to each his own, he thought.

Half an hour later, they were aimlessly walking through the city center, trying to find a place to stay. They were all carrying backpacks, some of them sweating more than others, and Mikasa had pulled her hair up in a pony tail that looked just weird on her.

Marco walked next to him, his face red with effort. “I think Armin’s getting a sunburn again.” he said “He’s unfortunate like that. One time, we even had to go to the hospital with him because he had high fever.”  
Jean looked at the rest of the group, gazing at Armin who was indeed starting to turn red all over his shoulder blades. “Perhaps you should buy him a large straw hat or something.”  
“Ah, look” he said, pointing at a house covered in makeshift plaster, which had a sign saying “ellátás és szállás” next to a rough sketch of a bed. “Food and lodging?” Jean guessed, looking doubtfully up the worn façade. It looked like a cheap excuse for a hostel, but the others seemed to be pleased enough to have found anything. There was a sign on the door, which was in a small alley, saying “Üdvözöljük!” in cursive handwriting and an underlined “kopogás”.

“Do you want to go in?” Jean asked “Really?” The place could be described shady at best, but Jean figured he would have a hard time getting them into an actual hotel, so he reached for the doorknob when Armin said “I think it’s as good as any place.”

The doorknob didn’t budge, the only reception they got for Jean turning it being a slight metallic churn. “Oh, great” he mumbled “Well, if that ain’t the heartbreak hotel.” He was about to turn around and tell them to search for another place when he heard a faint rumble from inside and someone obviously slapping the door.

“This place is weird” Marco said. “You only now realize?” Jean asked, frowning. They were basically standing in a dark alley, waiting for the creepy side door to open; the side door of a building that looked as if it could justify being demolished.  The wall they were facing was at least four stories high, casting a shade that was just cool enough for them to notice.

Then, the door opened, a guy even smaller than Armin standing in the threshold, giving them a somewhat apathetic look before turning into the dark doorway, calling “Gyere ide, Erwin!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The car tent exists and looks like [this](http://www.trabant-dachzelt.de)  
> Chapter title is taken from ["Back in Black"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efmSQrnx7WM) , which is in my Connie Mixtape, too. The Connie Mixtape was a piece of work and maybe I'll post it on 8tracks later or something. 
> 
> The money in the GDR wasn't worth much, if anyone's interested.  
> Also, I do realize my story has way too much historical stuff involved, but I think that's just a side effect of my main subject in school being History. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and leaving kudos :D

**Author's Note:**

> So, I guess, hugs out to everyone who read this, right?  
> I'll try posting regularly (please correct me if my English is complete shit) and I also have a [tumblr](http://www.mynightwithvangogh.tumblr.com)
> 
> Chapter Title is taken from Bruce Springsteen's ["Dancing in the Dark"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cibZydv3XLM)


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